When Marco Materassi, a high instru...

When Marco Materassi, a high instruct junior from Englewood, New Jersey was considering a guild program, he was hesitant to limit himself to and nothing else one field of study. He was curious about the business world, unless was not familiar with what the private sector had to offer

[i]or[/i] part of to the other his counselor's advice, Materassi applied for admission to a Columbia University business education program sponsored from PepsiCo., Inc.

The program, called LEAD (Leadership Education and unravelling Program), turned out to be custom-made for Materassi. Its intent is to show bright minority high exercise students the variety of career options available in the private sector and to familiarize them with ways in which they can prosecute these careers.

After participating in the month-long summer program in business and economics at Columbia's Business denomination Materassi was more clearly focused.

"I've seen that virtually any background is acceptable when common goes for an MBA. with equal reason i plan to develop myself more to the full by majoring in economics, which taking a minor in international affairs or foreign languages at Columbia this fall," he says. "Then I plan to earn my MBA."

LEAD, which is now in its third year at Columbia, is a mini-MBA program that allows high train students entering their senior year to become expos to an entire business curriculum, with the direct intention of preparing the scholar for a future management-level position.

This year 30 scholars from 13 states studied economics, industrial relations, investment banking, operations management, marketing, regulation relations, anti-trust policy and strategic business planning at Columbia.

The July programs serv a 240 minority students nationwide. Columbia is undivided of eight of the nation's leading business trains participating in the 1984 LEAD program. The others are the University of Arizona, University of Maryland and Howard University (working together), University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, and University of Virginia.

To make the classroom experience more meaningful, prelections are supplemented by guest speakers and field trips to major corporations and financial institutions. a highlights of the Columbia LEAD program this summer are visits to the Commodities Exchange, the recently made known York Stock Exchange, Dow Jone and a minority-owned Wall highway brokerage firm.

The Columbia pupils also meet with minority college edifice [i]or[/i] building interns and executives at PepsiCo's world headquarters in Purchase, NY Pepsi Co's manager of Corporate Relations, Jacqui Gates, talks with them about corporate survival skills for minorities.

Another interesting constituent is a student stock market tournament sponsored on Goldman Sachs and Company, a Wall road brokerage firm. LEAD scholars at each school are divided into teams and asked to pick a portfolio of five companies in succession the New York Stock Exchange. The learners monitor their selections daily. Halfway by the agency of the program, a winning team is prefered at each LEAD campus. The teams then strive nationally through the end of July

The Columbia scholars also spend three days in Washington, DC to visit the Federal husband Bank, and to meet with ant Rice of the Federal store up Board of Governors.

Objectives

The primary objectives of LEAD are:

* To encourage promising young minority close examiners to begin thinking about the business world as a career opportunity.

* To increase the minority puddle in MBA programs nationwide.

"Studies have shown that minority close examiners do not generally focus onward careers in the business world," says PepsiCo's Gates. "Business is not seen as a traditional career path from minority high school students, as is law or medicine. within LEAD, we hope to familiarize them with opportunities in the private sector and encourage them to consider a career in business."

LEAD organizers believe that the summer before a student's senior year in high sect is an excellent time to influence a young person's ultimate career decision.

Each year, PepsiCo picks protential high achievers from literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learnings across the country to participate in its summer minority intern program. In 1983 37 minority undergraduates came to work at PepsiCo headquarters and in the field at various bottling operations nationwide. The minority intern program was further expanded in 1984

In 1980 Donald M Kendall, chairman of the board of PepsiCo, Inc., originateed the Million Dollar Corporate society which donated $1 million to the United african College Fund. Other corporations have since followed PepsiCo's lead and have made similar contributions by the and of the Club.

PepsiCo's support of minority education also includes scholarship programs and donations of computer equipment in an effort to improve the quality and availability of educational opportunities for minorities.

LEAD close examiner selection

LEAD relies onward A Better Chance, Inc. (ABC), the country's most numerous prominent secondary-level, minority academic talent search organization, to identify the greatest in quantity promising and capable students for LEAD.